Fabulous Fabric Bowls - Day School with Kit Strathairn

Those of us who attended Kit's previous day school on making mirrors with angelina frames, knew we were in for a treat at this day school. Kit returned armed with packs of precut materials for us to choose our favourite colourway. This was such a boon as it saved time and frustration and enabled everyone to get stuck in straightaway. Kit had brought along a lot of her fabric bowls, some of which you can see in the first two photos.

We drew motifs of our choice onto Bondaweb, then ironed it onto the pre-dyed pelmet vylene with coloured foil. This was overlaid with organza and machined into place, with wadding on the back. Then we could go to town, decorating the motifs with stitching or beads, and filling in the background of the bowl. Then we stitched on our lining material, and made cords with fancy threads and yarns. One design, but so many variations.

We learned quite a few techniques, got a bit more familiar with the capabilities of our sewing machines, and most of us finished our bowls, which means fewer UFOs in those drawers! It was a very enjoyable day, especially as the jewel like bowls made us forget the dismal weather outside. Kit is a very good and well prepared teacher, and we hope we'll see her again soon.

Talk by Sharon Spink - My Crafting Journey

Today we enjoyed hearing about Sharon Spink's journeys through the craft world, enhanced by a very cheerful and eclectic table of handmade goodies.

Since the age of ten, Sharon from Arbroath has been making things with her hands, Starting off with a piece of patchwork, she has knitted, stitched, baked and decorated celebration cakes, made toys and craft items from fabric, painted glass, designed and made wedding stationery, framed pictures, and done many more crafty things to numerous to mention.  With great enthusiasm about all things handmade, we were left breathless at the amount of skills she demonstrated, all beautifully done. We wondered if she ever sleeps, she has achieved so much! More of Sharon's work can be found on Facebook, at Summer Rose Crafts, where you can find out where she will be exhibiting her crafts.

Tooth Fairy pillows

Family Tree

Tea Light Luminaries

Cake decorations - Cinderella shoes and sugar paste orchids

Wedding Stationery

Christmas Tree Skirt

Thurs 11th October- Day School with Morag Gray – ‘Manipulated Textiles

An enjoyable day school encourages us to think about texture in our work. Morag showed us numerous techniques, which we practiced in the morning and made samples. Then in the afternoon we used a variety of fabrics using the techniques we had learned.

Talk - ‘Flights of Fancy – Butterflies & Beasties’

This afternoon we were delighted by Jan Reid and Lynn Gourley giving a talk and slide show about the exhibition Flights of Fancy – Butterflies & Beasties’. This exhibition was held at Perth Museum and Art Gallery in September 2017, and was a project to mark the 25th anniversary of the setting up of Perth and District Embroiderer's Guild. The ladies wanted a project that they could work on individually, unlike for example, the Great Tapestry of Scotland, or a journal, which had to be passed around from person to person.

The museum had a collection of butterflies and insects, and this proved to be the inspiration for the project. Something small enough to be worked on individually, at home or together, and offering a huge scope for imagination, using different techniques, and freedom to use whatever media each person favoured.  Over the course of a year the myriad of butterflies hatched and flew, with techniques including stamping on organza, gold work, blackwork, Hardanger, stump work, devore, shadow work, machine embroidery, cross stitch, burning and cutting back, angelina, beadwork, the scope was endless. 

The creatures were displayed in cabinets in the museum, with the bugs crawling across the floor or the cabinet, and the butterflies either displayed in collector's boxes, or strung from invisible thread from the roof of the cabinet to make a great cloud of gorgeous wings in flight.  Children from five primary schools (Coupar Angus, Abernethy, Blairingone, Abernyte, and Viewland in Perth, enthusiastically took part, making caterpillars and butterflies, which were also on show. 

Below is a selection of the creatures that Jan and Lynn brought along, all displayed on a table, we could only imagine what they would have looked like in full flight. The embroidered bug rug was beautifully done, and also sported a march of  3D beetles (my favourite was the dung beetle!), all in glorious colours and exquisite detail.

We think it was a lovely project for a group of stitchers, and hope that Jan and Lynn will give us a day school in the future.

Below are some photos which I took, sadly we have none of the actual exhibition at Perth, or the children's contributions, but for those on Facebook, Perth & District Embroiderers Guild has a selection of other pictures of the beautiful work.